


sanctuary

by OedipusOctopus



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, Futurefic, M/M, OC nieces, an impossibly large bed, and noya takes advantage, asahi is a really really heavy sleeper, cuddle puddle, fair warning i don't know how children talk bc i myself am the baby of the family, hq sibling arc!!!!, just fluff, noya has so many nieces, so do the girls, uncles noya and asahi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OedipusOctopus/pseuds/OedipusOctopus
Summary: Nishinoya's sisters are away at a Girls' Night Retreat, and they've pushed babysitting responsibility onto Asahi and Noya for the weekend.Or, Noya's numerous nieces pile into their bed, and it becomes one giant cuddle puddle.
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> writing as self care 2k20!!!!
> 
> hello welcome to my hc implication of noya having three (3) older sisters. he is a very happy, very cool uncle. and asahi is, as always, along for the ride.
> 
> aka this image appeared in my brain and wouldn't leave, and i really needed some sort of outlet today.

He wonders what decisions led him here, exactly. 

Here, with fingers roughened by tools of the trade gripping the tender skin of his hip, with wispy strands of hair escaped from the pineapple-patterned scrunchie he’d bought as a birthday gift tickling his nose, under the all-encompassing weight of the comforter sewn together by the nimble twelve-year-old hands of his niece, Nishinoya Yuu knows peace.

He knows, realistically, that the world isn’t perfect or peaceful, that as soon as he leaves the warm confines of this moment, something will wreck it. But it’s hard to care when Asahi’s chest is heaving up, down, up, down with the force of sleep entrained breaths, so deeply Yuu feels it in the way the bed shifts beneath their legs twined together at their ankles. It’s practically impossible to think about it when he presses his nose into the smooth column of Asahi’s neck and feels his pulse, as steady and sure as Asahi himself. It doesn’t matter, not when he’s surrounded by the scent of the laundry detergent they spent years arguing over before coming to a compromise with _spring meadow._

The sound of footsteps padding across the carpet disturbs the quiet calm. Yuu starts to move away from Asahi, albeit reluctantly. 

“Uncle Yuu,” a voice thick with sleep and sharp with youth cuts through Yuu’s internal sentiment. “I had a nightmare.”

Carefully, Yuu pries away the arm lying across his waist and sits up, rustling the bed sheets. His eyelids stick together a little when he opens them, slow and heavy. Sure enough, there at the foot of the bed, Moriko stands with her toes pointed inward, a curled fist rubbing at her right eye and her inky black hair spilling over her shoulders. Ugh, it’s crazy how much she looks like her mother. 

“Can I cuddle with you and Uncle Azu?” Moriko lets out a yawn. “Please?” she tacks on, as if Yuu has the willpower to say no in the first place.

“‘Course you can, you rascal. C’mon.” Yuu lifts the comforter, motioning for her to jump right in. 

Hesitating for only a second— god, she’s come so far— Moriko nods resolutely before climbing into the bed, pressing herself against Yuu’s side. His t-shirt bunches up where she grips it tightly as she burrows her face into his chest.

“Wanna talk about it?” He throws an arm around Moriko, pulling her closer into him. 

All he gets in response is the feeling of Moriko violently shaking her head into his side. 

Yuu hums lightly. He trails his fingertips in slow circles along her back, the way his mom used to before he thought he was too big and grown up to need help.

“Why is Uncle Azu still asleep?”

Like he knows he’s being talked about, Asahi lets out a harsh snore from Yuu’s other side. 

Yuu chuckles lightly, moving his hand to card his fingers through Moriko’s hair. “The big guy doesn’t wake up for anything short of someone jumping on him.”

Moriko doesn’t say anything, but her breaths are still uneven, still awake and alert. 

“You wanna jump on him, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she squeaks out. “Like a lot.”

He lets out a bark of laughter, far too loud for this hour, for this space, but it bubbles up from deep in his diaphragm anyway. 

Thundering footsteps pound down the hall, getting closer and closer until Saki’s lanky frame fills the doorway. The light from the living room lamp— _you have to leave it on, Uncle Yuu, or the monsters will get you!—_ spills into the room, casting a shadow of his eldest niece on the floor in front of her. “I heard laughing,” she whispers, harshly. “At 2 am,” she adds, firmly. 

“We’re plotting Asahi’s demise.” Yuu shifts again, tugging Moriko closer to the centre of the bed. “C’mon, it’s a party.” He pats the open space on the other side of Moriko.

Saki crosses her arms. She stands in the doorway, still and imposing, and it looks so much like Yuu’s oldest sister getting ready to scold him for staying up too late playing on his GameBoy under his covers that he can’t help the way his heart twinges in his chest. 

He hopes Mariko can’t feel it. He’s supposed to be the cool uncle, after all. 

“Well,” Saki says like a sigh. “If we’re talking about taking out Uncle Azu I guess I’ll allow it.” She pads to join the three of them on the bed, tucking herself under the comforter she made herself earlier this year, for a school project. “You don’t have to use this blanket, y’know. I know the stitching is really bad.”

“Hey, no self-deprecation under my roof.” Yuu stretches his leg to kick at Saki’s shin. 

“Saki-nee, what’s self-defa—def—fiction?”

“Something you should never do,” Yuu says sagely before Saki gets a chance to respond.

Mariko squirms in Yuu’s grasp. “Oh. Okay.”

He can feel Saki’s eyes rolling into the back of her skull. 

“Hey,” a new voice interrupts from the hallway. Yuu cranes his neck to see Kana’s round face peer around the doorframe. “I saw Moriko wasn’t in her bed—oh.” She interrupts herself, no doubt a little surprised to see two of her cousins cuddling together with Yuu. 

“Well, what’re you waiting for? There’s plenty of room for ya.” Yuu reaches his arm out as far as he can over not one but two bodies and taps the rapidly shrinking space at the edge of the bed. “Just a good old Nishinoya family cuddle puddle.”

“That’s not my family name,” Moriko pipes up. 

“Me neither.”

“Yeah, mine’s Shimi—”

“It’s the sentiment, guys!” Yuu sighs dramatically, but cracks a smile when he feels Kana’s weight settle into the bed. “Jeez, you think I’m such a bad uncle that I don’t even know your names?”

“Yeah, actually,” Saki says. 

Moriko giggles and nods her agreement into the crook of his arm. 

“I—I mean, there’s a lot of us, so I don’t blame you at all!” Kana rushes to say. 

“I’m hurt. I’m wounded. My own flesh and blood… No one believes in me. I’ll just waste away, all alone. Betrayed by my own family.” Yuu starts to roll over, slowly releasing his hold on Moriko’s tiny body. 

“No!” Moriko cries, wrapping her hands around his waist. “We love you, Uncle Yuu, don’t go!”

“You’re such a sucker, Moriko.” Saki reaches her arm over Moriko’s head to flick Yuu’s ear. “He’s not going anywhere, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you. Mom told me he used to do this all the time.”

“Ouch!” Yuu rubs the shell of his ear with the hand not being squeezed to death by his niece. “You’re a bully, just like your mom!” Not that she’s wrong— he isn’t going anywhere, he’s just being a brat.

(And he did pull this kind of stuff all the time when he was a kid. He was the smallest, the cutest, and the favourite child. Of course he was gonna pull heartstrings for fun.)

“Hey!” Yet another voice, loud and bright, shouts from the foot of the bed. “You’re all just gonna leave Uncle Azu by himself? So mean.”

“Chie, come save me from these fiends. They’re being so mean to me—”

“You probably deserve it, Uncle Yuu.” Chie tuts as she walks around to the opposite side of the bed. She lifts the comforter and slides into the space next to Asahi, her recently dyed blond locks fanning out on the pillow behind her. A small smile gracing her face, she prods at Asahi’s scrunchie. “Cute. But it makes me want pineapple shortcake.”

“Ew, pineapple is so nasty.”

“You’re so wrong, Saki.”

“Um, it’s okay to have different opinions—” Kana’s gentle voice tries to soothe, but is interrupted by a loud scoff from Saki. 

“This isn't an opinion. It’s a _fact_ that pineapple is _disgusting.”_

“That’s not even true! It’s, like, the most popular fruit—”

“How would you even know that?”

“I just do—”

“Uncle Yuu?” 

The bickering stops when Hana’s tiny voice comes from the hallway. Yuu sits up a little, earning a groan from Moriko. 

Hana is clutching Haru’s hand in hers, the two twins nearly drowning in their matching Disney princess nightgowns. “Why did everyone leave?”

His _heart._ Haru’s pigtails are lopsided, a big chuck of strawberry blonde fallen down and clinging to her neck, and Hana’s topknot is barely hanging on, undoubtedly because the kid is an absolute squirming nightmare when she sleeps. The urge to braid their hair the way he normally does Asahi’s is overwhelming— oh _god_ the three of them could match, and, ooh, he could use those freshly bloomed roses in the backyard to make matching flower crowns for them—

“C-can we c-cuddle, too?” Haru’s voice comes out meek, barely audible over the rustling of sheets beneath all the children already in the bed. 

“Of course! C’mon.” Yuu waves them over. 

Hana squeals, a piercing screech that makes Yuu wince. Seriously, how the hell has Asahi not woken up yet?

Her hips shimmying, knees bending in preparation, Yuu watches in apt horror as he launches herself onto the bed. She lands between Asahi’s legs— thankfully not anywhere else— and giggles. “That was so fun! Hey, Haru, come up here!”

Haru eyes the mattress wearily, like she’s not sure she can make it up. Yuu is about to sit up and lift her, but she squats down low, and then jumps onto the bed just like her sister. 

Monsters, the lot of them. 

Beaming with pride, Hana gives her twin a high five. “Let’s squish Uncle Azu.”

Yuu’s eyes dart to Asahi’s still form. He’s resting on his stomach, one arm hanging limply at his side, the other cushioning his forehead against the crook of his elbow. 

He _probably_ won’t suffocate under the weight of two four-year-olds. 

Probably.

So he watches on as Hana crawls onto Asahi’s back, curling up on top of the covers. She holds her hand out, and Haru takes it, moving up the bed to lay mostly on the arm by Asahi’s side. 

Yuu wants to cry, a little bit, because it’s too freaking _cute._

With everyone in the house now packed onto Asahi and Yuu’s bed, his heart is full, his arms occupied, his body surrounded by his family. Quiet blankets them, warm and comforting as it fills every corner. The stillness is only broken when soft snores break out, one by one, as the children fall asleep.

He really, really doesn’t want the morning to come.

“Hey, Uncle Yuu?” Chie’s voice is quiet, for once. 

Not wanting to wake anyone, Yuu merely hums in acknowledgement. 

“I think it’s cool that you and Uncle Azu’s names are opposites.”

He chuckles lightly, keeping it toned down to barely more than a quick breath of air rushing past his lips. 

“It’s, like, super romantic. Like you were meant for each other.”

“Yeah.” Yuu spreads his fingers, his pinky brushing up against the side of Asahi’s arm. “Something like that.”

~~

He’s awoken by a sharp gasp in his ear. His eyes snap open and he tries to sit up, but there’s a weight pressing on his chest, keeping him pinned, prone. 

Right. The girls. 

A grin breaks out across his face. He turns his head to face Asahi, and as he does, all the breath in his lungs is expelled in one go, like that time Ryuu punched him in the solar plexus because he’d just learned what a solar plexus was. 

Asahi is looking at him, eyelids droopy with leftover sleep. A few strands of hair that have fallen from his bun frame his face, curl around his eyebrow, graze the sharp incline of his jaw. And his eyes— they’re glassy, glazed over with a fresh layer of tears threatening to spill over. But his face doesn’t seem distressed. No, his lips are upturned at the corners, his cheeks slightly pink with a happy flush.

“When did they come in here last night?” Asahi whispers, moving his hand toward Yuu’s— as much as he can while his arm is still pinned under half of Haru’s weight, anyway. 

Yuu bites his lip to keep himself from laughing. He shakes his head, lifting a hand to pet through Haru’s hair that’s completely fallen from the hairband he’d put in when he tucked her into bed last night. 

“It was an ordeal, wasn’t it?”

Barely restraining the laugh that so desperately claws at his throat, Yuu nods. 

Asahi sighs. He tries to shift, grunting at how much effort he has to exert under the weight of two toddlers atop him. 

Giggle sufficiently dampened, Yuu speaks as quietly as possible. “I promised Moriko she could jump on you. Pretend to be asleep, yeah?”

Sighing deeply once more, Asahi nods and shuts his eyes. “They’re lucky they’re all so cute.”

“You’d love them even if they were ugly.”

“Yeah. I would.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope everyone enjoyed!!! 
> 
> come scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/OedipusOctopus).
> 
> black lives matter. wear a mask. stay home when you can. be kind to each other.


End file.
